Alexander, Hattie Elizabeth

Alexander, Hattie Elizabeth

(1901–68) pediatrician, microbiologist; born in Baltimore, Md. Educated at Baltimore's Goucher College (B.A. 1923), she worked as a bacteriologist for state and federal Public Health Services for three years to save money for medical school. She received the M.D. from Johns Hopkins University in 1930 and specialized in pediatrics at the Harriet Lane Home in Baltimore. She was a research and teaching staff member of New York's Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center for 37 years. Her studies on influenzal meningitis resulted in a successful treatment for this previously fatal disease (1939). Her 1940s research into DNA made her one of the first geneticists.

The Cambridge Dictionary of American Biography, by John S. Bowman. Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1995. Reproduced with permission.